Psychologists Focusing on Positive Thinking / But critics caution too much optimism can be a bad thing

Terence Monmaney, Los Angeles Times

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, January 11, 2000

Now that the future is here, how fitting that researchers are finally getting a grip on optimism, the curious human habit of expecting good things to happen, often in defiance of reality. Dozens of recent studies show that optimists do better than pessimists in work, school and sports, suffer less depression, achieve more goals, respond better to stress, wage more effective battles against disease and, yes, live longer.

The popularity of optimism research has convinced some scholars that psychology should focus less on misery and more on why things go right.

"Social science now finds itself in almost total darkness about the qualities that make life most worth living," said Martin Seligman, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist and past president of the American Psychological Association, in a 1998 speech.

Over the past three decades, he said, citing another scholar's spadework, there were 46,000 papers in the psychology literature on depression -- and just 400 on joy. But 21st century psychology, he predicted, "will become a science of human strength and of personal fulfillment."

Indeed, the psychological association's flagship journal starts the year with a special issue co-edited by Seligman and devoted to optimism and "positive psychology" -- an idea, perhaps surprisingly, that has generated controversy.

Perhaps no research finding quite lifts the spirits like the observation that optimists live longer than pessimists. One reason may be that optimists do a better job of staying out of harm's way. So concluded a recent study drawing on records from a project begun eight decades ago involving 1,800 boys and girls in California.

By the 1990s, about half of the men and a third of the women in the study had died. Those who gave optimistic answers to essay questions when they were young lived an average of two years longer than did their pessimistic counterparts.

Pessimistic people appeared more prone to accidents and violence, including car wrecks, household mishaps, even homicide.

"From what I'm able to figure out, pessimistic people are in bad moods," said the lead author of the 1998 study, psychologist Christopher Peterson of the University of Michigan. "And when you're in a bad mood, you're more likely to do risky things," because you're either distracted or downright reckless.

Other evidence that optimists live longer has been gathered by UCLA psychologist Shelley Taylor and co- workers, who studied 78 men with AIDS beginning in the late 1980s. Those who indicated that they had a realistic view of their disease's course died an average of nine months sooner than those who were more optimistic about postponing the end. And the researchers say they ruled out other reasons for the optimists' longer lives, such as less severe illness to begin with.

Taylor argues that an optimistic frame of mind actually modulates the nervous system in a way that bolsters immune-system defenses. And indeed, in yet another study, the researchers found that among first-year UCLA law students, the optimists had higher levels of disease-fighting cells in their blood than did the pessimists.

It might seem contrary to good sense that people benefit from unfounded optimism. After all, distinguishing between reality and illusion is a touchstone of sanity.

But some social scientists have generated controversy by reporting evidence for what is probably the central paradox of positive thinking: Clinging to the belief in a positive future against reasonable odds sometimes makes it happen.

Naturally, that may often occur just because over-optimists keep trying -- a variation on the old saw that quitters never win. But there appears to be more to it.

For instance, in a report published last year about men infected with the AIDS virus, Taylor and co- workers found that the optimists had remained symptom-free longer than had the pessimists, whose assessment of their medical condition was actually more in line with clinical data.

Generally, as many commentators have pointed out, improvements in AIDS treatments over the years are a reminder that hopes that once seemed unrealistic can yield to justifiable optimism.

Taylor, author of the 1989 book "Positive Illusions," said researchers know very little about how such an "optimistic bias" might help the body's defenses. The key, she said, is that such unrealism "isn't necessarily bad. It can be wonderful."

This view has its critics. A false sense of security can be dangerous when it comes to taking physical risks, says Neil Weinstein, a psychologist at Rutgers University.

Epidemics of sexually transmitted diseases, for example, are fueled in part by people who make overly optimistic assumptions about their sexual partners.

"You can think of many instances in which people's underestimation of risk can get them into serious trouble," Weinstein said.

In the popular imagination, optimists have long been portrayed as foolishly oblivious to problems. But numerous studies show that optimists, far from protecting their fragile vision of the world, confront trouble head-on.

In a 1993 study of women who had recently been given the diagnosis of breast cancer, the women with an optimistic disposition were more likely to acknowledge the seriousness of the disease. They experienced less distress and took more active steps to cope with it.

"Optimism was associated with positively reframing the situation, with women believing, 'This is not going to go away, so let me make the best of it I can,' " Carver said.

Because experts believe that no less than half of one's optimistic tendency is nurtured, research probes its roots in childhood experience.

A soon-to-be-published study co- written by Vanderbilt University psychologist Judy Garber found that young adolescents often share their mothers' outlook, evidently because they learn her style of interpreting events, especially negative ones.

Children with what is known as a pessimistic explanatory style -- they blame errors on deep personal flaws and dismiss triumphs as lucky breaks -- were more likely to have been told their mistakes were caused by overarching deficiencies in their makeup. Disciplining children by inducing guilt or temporarily withdrawing affection also fostered pessimistic tendencies.

"If parents are negative, critical, blaming, then the child is going to learn that's how to explain things in the world," Garber said.

At the same time, she and other researchers have clearly shown that reality also matters. Children who endure hardship and tragedy, from sickness to divorcing parents to a death in the family, are also prone to pessimistic thinking.

If Seligman and others are correct, the consequences of pessimistic thinking in childhood may be broader than is usually acknowledged. They are studying the origins of optimism and pessimism with an eye toward reducing what some have called the "epidemic of depression" among the young.

Perhaps the most widely used method for assessing optimistic or pessimistic disposition is the Life Orientation Test, developed by psychologists Michael Scheier and Charles Carver.

The range is from 0 to 24, from extreme pessimism to extreme optimism, with virtual neutrality being the midpoint, 12.

Most people who have taken the test are slightly optimistic, Carver said. For instance, among 2,000 college students, the average score was 14, with two-thirds scoring between 10 and 18.

Now Playing:

A group of 159 patients awaiting coronary artery bypass surgery had an average score of 15, possibly suggesting that a serious challenge may boost one's optimism a bit.

"People tend to run a little toward the optimistic end of the dimension, but not by a whole lot," Carver said. "Also, people tend to be moderate in their self- descriptions. Not many are saying they are enormously optimistic or pessimistic."

Latest from the SFGATE homepage:

Click below for the top news from around the Bay Area and beyond. Sign up for our newsletters to be the first to learn about breaking news and more. Go to 'Sign In' and 'Manage Profile' at the top of the page.